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Does "land area" assume a country is perfectly flat?

Stand-up Maths · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Recreational & visual mathGeology & earth science

What it is

Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths asks whether a country's reported land area accounts for hills and mountains, working through how surface area depends on the resolution of elevation data. It follows up on a question from a viewer and work by researchers who measured it.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it in map projection and coastline threads as a fun look at how measurement choices change area figures.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2020, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “StandUpMaths did a great video on this recently”

    Explores whether national land area accounts for elevation.

    swilliamsio, 2020-09 · Recommendation · in “Coastline Paradox”

  2. “Matt Parker from Standup Maths made a great video on exactly this subject”

    Matt Parker on whether land area assumes flat countries.

    jobigoud, 2020-11 · Recommendation · in “The True Size Of Countries: Mercator projection”

  3. “Great video on this from Matt Parker”

    Area measurement depends on elevation data resolution.

    rdlw, 2023-04 · Recommendation · in “The longest straight line in Great Britain (without crossing a public road)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: surface area, topography, maps, measurement, mathematics

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